One of the most common activities related to the Internet is searching for information. The search for information is conducted either via dedicated portal web sites, or via search options provided as part of information bearing sites. Typically, the search is conducted by providing one or more key words, and some defined relation between them. One of the common problems of searching is the wealth of information provided. In many cases the user needs to review many items before identifying his desired target information. To resolve this issue the user needs to add additional keywords in order to hone in on his requirements and filter out unwanted information. In parallel, much effort has been devoted to relieve the user of adding keywords by providing various forms of search enhancement.
The search enhancement approaches can be broadly separated into two types: In one instance, semantic search, with the goal of enabling the user to describe his information needs rather than delving on the mechanics of keywords. In another instance, collaborative filtering approaches, where the user's activities, interest or reference group are used to hone in on the user's interests and thus identify the appropriate target information.
Since the results of a search are displayed as a list, a key issue in providing the information to the user is to bring relevant information to the top, or near the top, of the list. The relative location in the list in prior art systems is defined by the rank of the web site in the search engine's ranking system.
Across the chasm of the search engines lies the web pages themselves, organized into a web site. The goal in producing a web site is to reach out to the information seekers and provide the content of the web pages of the web site to the information seeker. Since the connection to the information seeker is facilitated by the search engines, the web sites employ methods broadly termed Search Engine Optimization (SEO) which attempt to enhance the ranking of the web site, and/or web pages thereof, by manipulation and incorporation of keywords into the web site.
Both of the search enhancement approaches, as well as the web site's SEO to enhance their ranking, are based on segmentation of target audience and optimizing keywords based on the segmentation. Unfortunately, the web sites lack a general and direct method of increasing their rank in the search engine for a segmented audience. Increasing the rank for a target audience allows for a more efficient use of resources, and preferably further results in an improved user experience. It is to be noted that privacy concerns must be taken into account, to ensure that identifying information is not made publicly available.
There is thus a need for a method for enabling sites to define their target audience in a way that improves the ranking of search results for that target audience.
An additional need is to enable web sites, social networks, advertisers and mobile applications to tune their content based on user selectable attributes.
A further need is to enable physical objects such as a car, a house, or physical locations such as a shop, train station to adapt their characteristics based on user selectable attributes.